DEL MAR – If the $300,000 Clement Hirsch Stakes at Del Mar on Sunday was supposed to settle any of the debate regarding Zenyatta and Rachel Alexandra, guess again.

Zenyatta ran her unbeaten streak to 12 races by digging down deep and getting up in the final couple of strides to beat 22-1 long shot Anabaa’s Creation by a head. She ran the final quarter-mile in an ultra-impressive 22.49 seconds en route to a final clocking of 1:43.24 for the 1<MD+,%30,%55,%70>1/<MD-,%0,%55,%70>16 miles on Polytrack.

But the victory wasn’t by 20<MD+,%30,%55,%70>1/<MD-,%0,%55,%70>4 or 19<MD+,%30,%55,%70>1/<MD-,%0,%55,%70>4 lengths, so you can expect the Rachel Alexandra camp to come out in full force today, talk up their favorite filly and try to diminish Zenyatta, whom some still regard as an inferior horse because she’s won 11 of her 12 races on synthetics.

“I learned a long time ago you can’t be concerned really with what other people think,” said Jerry Moss, Zenyatta’s owner. “They’re going to say it, some people are going to repeat it and it’s going to become maybe a bigger deal than it needs to be.

“You can’t control that.”

Moss then seemed to poke a little fun at Jess Jackson, Rachel Alexandra’s co-owner who regularly holds news conferences to announce where his filly will be running next.

“I don’t have a press agent, I don’t have a publicity director and I don’t have any control over what people say,” Moss said. “I have to depend on you guys who have seen her so many times, tell the real story of Zenyatta. If somebody puts a knock on her for winning by a nose, that’s their problem.

“It was an amazing performance today.”

Jockey Mike Smith, who’s ridden Zenyatta in her past nine victories, thought maybe he left Zenyatta with too much to do in her latest victory.

Pacesetter Lethal Heat, who finished third, was allowed to dawdle through early fractions of 23.86, 48.84 and 1:13.64 and had a two-length lead at the top of the stretch.

“We were going pretty easy early, Life Is Sweet was in front of me and I certainly believed that she was the mare to beat and I was going to turn it into a workout,” Smith said. “Zenyatta’s used to sitting back behind her competition in the morning and making that big run down the lane, and in doing that I might have underestimated the competition a little.

“If need be, to do it all over again, I could have certainly got her running around the turn a whole lot sooner and made the margin by more. But she only had to really run the last quarter-mile today, and I kind of like that myself. I like that she didn’t have to exert herself (too much). It wasn’t a taxing race, it wasn’t too hard on her.”

Zenyatta, the 1-5 favorite, still was 4<MD+,%30,%55,%70>1/<MD-,%0,%55,%70>2 lengths behind at the head of the lane, but those long strides and her will to win carried her to her second consecutive Clement Hirsch victory and third win of 2009.

“Isn’t it amazing how she just lengthens her stride?” trainer John Shirreffs said. “The farther down the stretch she went, the longer her stride got and the faster she was going. It’s really something to see.

“Some horses, they pick their head up as they’re coming toward the wire. She doesn’t. Boy, that head goes down and she lengthens her stride.”

Said Smith: “Great horses always seem to find a way. Even when things are stacked up against them, they seem just to find a way. That’s what she did today. This win, she didn’t draw off and win by 10, but she found a way.

“That last quarter-mile was probably as fast as any horse all year long.”

Moss had no doubt she’d get there.

“She always gets there,” he said.

The Zenyatta camp was noncommittal about when Zenyatta will race next, but Shirreffs all but ruled out the Pacific Classic against the boys Sept. 6.

“I don’t think so,” he said.

Tyler Baze, who rode Anabaa’s Creation, thought he had pulled off the upset of the year in Southern California.

“She ran her fanny off,” Baze said. “We got beat by a champion. I didn’t know where she (Zenyatta) was, but I knew she was coming. She came and got us.”

And Smith wanted all of Zenyatta’s detractors to know just how fast she was rumbling at the end.

“Make sure you (tell ’em) she hit top speed of 40 miles an hour (a Trakus clocking) at the wire,” he said.